Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU
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The Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SAS (I-VII)/ SASA (VIII/) is a scientific periodical of international significance which publishes papers in ethnology/anthropology. From its inception in 1952, the Bulletin publishes the results of scientific research projects of scientists and associates of the Institute and other affiliated institutions in the country and abroad. In addition, discussions and articles, supplements, field data, retrospectives, chronicles, reviews, translations, notes, bibliographies, obituaries, memories, critiques and similar are published as well. The Bulletin was founded as a means to publish the results of research of settlements and origins of populations, folk life, customs and folk proverbs. However, the concept of the Bulletin, like that of any other contemporary scientific journal, changed over time to accommodate the social, cultural and political processes and research trends in the social sciences and humanities.
The Bulletin (GEI) is referenced in the electronic bases: DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), Ulrich's Periodicals Directory and SCIndex (Serbian Citation Index). All articles are digitally available in a form typographically true to the original (in .pdf format). The Bulletin is also available in the same form on the website of the Institute of Ethnography SASA.
The Bulletin (GEI SANU) can also be found and read at CEEOL (Central and Eastern European Online Library): http://www.ceeol.com
Pages
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- Gypsy stories
- This paper discusses the performance of narratives as adaptive cultural behaviors among Gypsies in Mačva county, western Serbia. Storytelling is a universal activity and may well be oldest of the arts. It has always provided a vehicle for the expression of ideas, particularly in societies relying on oral tradition. Gypsies are present in Serbia since the Middle Ages, living within a larger Serbian culture as a minority group. Mačva, an agriculturally rich county in western Serbia, is a place where local Gypsy traditions are still alive and which help distinguish between Gypsy subgroups and the larger Serbian society. The stories analyzed are part of a collection made from several different Gypsy groups exhibiting varying degrees of influence from Serbian culture. Gypsies in Serbia have no written literature, but possess a rich and varied storytelling tradition delivered by word of mouth through the generations. Their stories bear testimony to the evolutionarily important mechanisms employed by Gypsies to make their way in the world. Gypsy stories concern many aspects of the relationship between themselves and other social groups, both in the past and the present. At the same time, the stories deal with universal adaptive problems, such as origin/ethnicity, kinship and mate acquisition. By applying the concepts and folk knowledge from their own culture, Gypsies have managed to provide for themselves the guidelines to overcome these problems within a particular environment. Thus it is that these stories reflect both human universals and cultural peculiarities - by utilization of localized cultural solutions to adaptive problems. The success Gypsies have achieved in surviving harassment, and their ability to sustain themselves and their cultures despite social rejection can be attributed, in part, to the power of the traditional stories to influence the behavior of those who hear them. For the Gypsies, telling and listening to the stories could be considered adaptive behavior: disseminating traits that were presumably successful in the past. These stories replicate and describe the environment in which the Gypsy ancestors struggled to survive. As a consequence, the narratives and the Gypsy real world are compatible in many constant and predictable ways, and many Gypsies are hence able to use narrative information/knowledge as a model for proper behavior which helps them to negotiate their social environment in their efforts to survive and reproduce.
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- Handcrafts
- The presentation and interpretation of handcrafts and trades are some of the most complex and challenging tasks in the open air museums operations. At the same time, considering the hypertextual characteristics of crafts, the integrative protection and holistic approach in representation are profound. Historical, social, cultural and economic backgrounds of handcrafts, not just its tools and products, even know-how, provoke traditional postulates of museums. Actually they provoke museum`s structure and politics almost to the point of complete re-defining. This change is a consequence of accepting contemporary museological thoughts embodied in new types of museums - economuseums. The main goal of this paper is perceiving the possibilities of interaction and permeate between living craft heritage and space/simulacra/ mission of scansens, finally real life itself and open air museums.
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- Happy marriages are all alike
- We describe how self-rated health varies with gender, type of marriage (marriage of choice vs arranged marriage), and cultural traits among Serbian Roma. Data on 91 men and 113 women (self-reported health, demographics and family dynamics) were collected in 2016 in Roma communities in Belgrade, Serbia. Roma in arranged marriage differ on a number of variables in regard to Roma in marriage of choice but not in regard to self-rated health. Gender specific analyses revealed that arranged marriages appear adaptive for both males and females, but they seem to benefit the males and not females in terms of health. For Roma women, a non-subordinate status was the strongest predictor of relatively “good” subjective health. All healthy (happily married) Roma men are alike in that they think they have subordinate wives and all healthy (happily married) Roma women are alike in that they think they are non-subordinate to their husbands.
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- Heritage documentation of villages in the Czech Republic 1996 - 2008
- The article deals with the project realized in the Czech Republic on the turn of the 20th and 21st century based on a field research. Wide database of the traditional buildings in villages could be used as a practical manual for care of historical monuments and state administration, and for ethnology, as well.
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- Historical tradition in Serbian genre literature
- This paper discusses two Serbian science-fiction stories with a special emphasis on the motives in their narrative structure; the motive analysis is focused on those motives that represent a transposition of 'historical tradition' elements. The key words connecting images appearing in this context are: fear of losing (national) identity and a strategy of resistance towards those, who presumably, want to 'take over' the identity. In this sense, a return to 'the historical tradition', in the analyzed texts, aims to reassess certain past models indicating at the same time those that have successfully served and endured as historical models in this discourse.
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- Holiday text message well-wishing
- Text messages became an important means of everyday communication, especially so among the younger generations. As a relatively new way of communication sending and receiving of text messages is shoving other, classical means such as letter writing. Sending a written message via cellular phone became usual means of communication in almost all life circumstances. This paper discusses messages sent out as well-wishing/cards for the most important yearly holidays.
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- How 'dangerous’ are migrants’ bodies?
- In this text I represent the narratives about migrants which are related to their bodies as potential/plausible carriers of diseases that could be spread to local population. The narratives are considered as special manifestations of the discourse of fear, though which migrants are being construed as a form of corporeal security threat. In particular, through the analysis of narratives about ebola and scabies, the potential to use the fear from disease as symbol and instrument of political power is indicated, when a disease ceases to be medical problem and becomes predominantly a social one. Fear from disease and measures undertaken to annul it are thus integrated into techniques of governance. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177027: Multietnicitet, multikulturalnost, migracije - savremeni procesi]
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- How Slovenia got the anti-burek system
- In modern Slovenian popular culture, media, vernacular etc., the burek – an important and popular dish among numerous immigrants to Slovenia and their descendants, and also probably the most popular Slovenian fast food – is probably the handiest and most often used signifier for immigrants from the former republics of the SFRY, the Balkans, the SFRY and the phenomena associated with it. The paper attempts to describe why and how this conceptual hyperinflation occurred precisely to this folded or rolled nutritional superhero, which most likely arrived in Slovenia in the early 1960s. The beginnings of the layering of all these meanings go back to the eighties, when the burek finally started to become a part of certain foreign urban food practices particularly among young people, which at the time were not seen as particularly meaningful. However, the fact that the burek found itself in the hands of "non-immigrants" was disturbing to some: the burek became a target of nationalism, which to some extent encouraged numerous young people during the nineties to appropriate it and to associate it with alternative or oppositional political meanings. But even in this case it would be insufficient or wrong to understand the burek as merely a symbolic object, chosen by college students and other young people during the nineties solely for its symbolic value – for its close but controversial association with Slovene nationalism. First we have to ask ourselves what was available during those times – cheap, accessible and providing at least a modicum of choices. The paper mirrors modern studies of material culture which assert the idea that materiality is an integral part of culture and society, and that without materiality, culture and society cannot be fully understood. The meanings of objects, and thus the meaning of the burek, are not understood (merely) as products of discourses and practices of signification, but (also) as embedded in the objective, material field in numerous and complex ways.
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- How the “People’s game“ conquered the world
- Contemporary football represents a highly commodified spectacle, a segment of the entertainment industry where huge amounts of money change hands, and the popularity of football competitions - whether national or international - is a global phenomenon, which billions of people take part in. Only thirty years ago, however, the situation was very different. In Western Europe, and especially Great Britain, football was mostly associated with hooliganism, and the audiences at the run-down stadiums were dwindling in numbers. On the other hand, in Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin wall football was at its peak, only to fall from grace and onto the European periphery in the 90’s, where it is, by and large, still situated. This dramatic transformation which turned football into “entertainment for rich people” did not occur by accident, it has deep roots in the history of the sport, but also in the wider socio-economic transformations within the context of which this segment of pop culture exists. In this paper I will offer a look at the social and economic conditions in which football developed with the aim of establishing a framework for understanding the changes which occurred within the sport and within the society, with a special focus on the connection between football and the rise of nationalism in the former Yugoslavia, but also wider social processes linked to the descent of Serbia into the so-called process of “transition”, or the acceptance of parliamentary democracy and capitalism as bases of social order. It is my intention to, through the analysis of sociohistorical elements which influenced the development and transformation of the game of football, indicate the wider frame of possibilities for the analysis of contemporary events through the prism of this segment of pop-culture.[Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177026]
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- Human rights and citizenship
- The phenomenon of universal human rights, as described in the Universal declaration of human rights in 1948 doesn’t seem to be able to exert itself as truly universal. For this, there are two reasons: one is politico-legal in nature, and the other is conceptual. From a politico-legal point of view, human rights are a practice which is perceived as law, a precedent which is still taking place, the illusion of law, a custom practice by a few which aims to become the law of all, practice/”law” which came into being as the consequence of specific historical and political circumstances but strives to impose itself as a kind of universal logos, independent from the geopolitical relations of power. From the conceptual point of view, human rights as they have been determined, are inextricably bound up with the concept of citizenship, but the nation-state is not the universally optimal polis/social order, through which a universal human whose rights are to be protected can be defined. Human rights, as they are defined, are too culturally and historically specific in order to become universal. As an example, I will give the different treatment received by persons of different citizenship in situations in which their lives are in peril. It turns out that human rights are less (or not at all) protected if the persons in need aren’t perceived as fullfledged members of the group, and hence, cannot fully participate in political life. That is to say, people who are perceived as non-citizens or whose citizenship is perceived as less valuable, and especially those whose existence has been reduced to survival are being politically dehumanized. Human rights remain reserved for so-called active citizens, those who have influence over matters of public importance, which points us to the conclusion that the practice of protecting human rights is completely politicized. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177027: Multietnicitet, multikulturalnost, migracije - savremeni procesi]
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- Humorous "Era" stories from the Arilje region
- This paper discusses humorous stories collected in the village of Brekovo near Arilje; the stories were created in the first half of the 20th century and noted down by Momčilo Jovanović, a villager from Brekovo. Later on, in the 1980's, the stories were passed down to the author of this paper. These narrations are mostly short stories and anecdotes; in a very realistic fashion, the stories depict life and culture of the Dinaric race from old Vlah - Zlatibor cultural area, namely, the type of person also known as "Era", well-known for its wittiness, smartness and wisdom. Based on the analysis of seven Era-stories, the author identified the social and cultural values highlighted in the stories (such as attitudes toward authorities intergenerational relationship, status of women, power relations between townsmen and peasants, propensity toward justice and truth). In summary, the stories document the mutual influence between traditional culture and the Era personality in this particular rural region; therefore, they could contribute to studies on character traits of the inhabitants in a given area of western Serbia.
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- I will follow him through woody mountains and water
- The starting points for this paper are Vuk’s testimony about the bride kidnapping in the Serbia of his time and the formulaic parts of speech pronounced during the trials, which Vuk mentions. Through a semantic-pragmatic analysis of the formulae used in trials, the author draws attention to some indicators of faux archaism perceived in them. A special attention is paid to the formula I will follow him through woody mountains and water, which the girls would pronounce when they wanted to admit their willingness to abduction. In order to reach the full pragmatic function and meaning of this formula within the specific communication context of the trial, the author compares the relevant elements from the Vuk’s testimony with the historical and legal archive materials and traces them further on through the folk songs in which those elements appear. The results of the comparative analysis of those songs, within their own pragmatic contexts, point towards certain mythic patterns related to the idea of fertility. This leads the author to the hypothesis that in the past the marriage by consensual abduction was a recognized institution in the customary law and that this practice had its foothold in mythological ideas and beliefs. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 47016: Interdisciplinarno istraživanje kulturnog i jezičkog nasleđa Srbije. Izrada multimedijalnog portala ‘Pojmovnik srpske kulture’]